Everyone who knows me knows that I hate flying. It's loud, uncomfortable, confining and if things go wrong there's no way out. (I'm an advocate of parachutes under seat, not inflatable vests.)
But the real reason I hate flying these days is the environmental impact.
a) Apparently you're better off driving to your destination, alone, even if it's thousands of miles away, than being on a full plane. That's how bad the fuel consumption is.
b) Planes dump their emissions in the most delicate part of the stratosphere and there's nothing to help mitigate the damage. For all of the pollution cars create, we have our plant life down here to help soften the blow.
c) They are noisy, booming things and no matter where we go, we seem to be able to hear one or see one, even the far hills of Scotland.
d) The amount of packaging they use per passenger is amazing. When my husband recently flew on a short haul flight to Amsterdam, he asked the air steward if they recycled any of the cans, cups etc and the air steward dismissed his question by saying 'that would be far too expensive.'
So they are massive air polluters, noise polluters, they create masses of plastic rubbish, are fuel hungry and the actual airlines don't recycle their waste or seem to care to.
And how does the UK government respond? Subsidies of course. They prop them up with heaps of money to make it cheaper for consumers to perpetuate the cycle. The subsidies work out to something like £500 per person in the UK that go to the airline industry. I don't understand how this is possible.
It's been an interesting week trying to buy household products and food only made from recyclable packaging. A mixed bag. Literally. For example, I just made a rocket (arugula) salad with fresh mozzarella. The rocket I bought from Waitrose last week was in a recyclable bag made from recycled plastic. However, the rocket I bought from Sainbury's today was in a bag that did not have the recyclable sign, nor was it made from recycled plastic. The Sainsbury's mozzarella was equally guilty. However, Sainsbury's does use some bags that are recyclable, mainly for their organic products. Less confusing were the products in cardboards boxes/cartons and aluminum packaging. All clearly recyclable. And almost all of the plastic packaging we bought was recyclable apart from a few random items we bought at Marks and Spencers and the lunch spot Eat. Things like salad containers that looked like they were candidates for the recycling pile turned out not to have any recycling symbols...
Comments
Am enjoying the blog - nice to find another Londoner who feels as guilty about wrecking the planet as me!
Thought you might be interested to know about the concept of Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/). A great way of keeping stuff out of landfill and not throwing away perfectly usable things. I'm presently shifting half my stuff on it before I move out of London!
Cheers!
Steve
Let us know how it works out for you. Might be worthy of a review.
Green Lady